The Unexpected Potential Benefit of Tech Layoffs

Last week, Lyft’s new CEO, David Risher, announced plans to cut at least 1,200 jobs. Overall, tech companies have laid off 183,801 global workers so far this year, according to Layoffs.fyi. This adds to the total of 159,684 tech employees who were laid off in 2022. Companies cite several factors contributing to widespread layoffs: a weakened economy, higher inflation rates, and rightsizing after over-hiring post-COVID-19.

We think many are overlooking the potentially transformative impact this could have not on the tech sector but on all other sectors because, you see, not all of these job seekers will return to the tech industry. Many will bring their skills to non-tech sectors. Non-tech companies have been clamoring for years to hire tech talent, and these layoffs could present a windfall opportunity for non-tech companies across industries to finally close the gap between the demands of digital evolution and the talent needed to fulfill on its potential.

Image via Insider Intelligence

In order to transform to a truly digital and customer-centric company, organizations need to master a few things: shareable data and analytics to support moment-of-use production and provision, and real-time learning systems that can adapt and respond to a constantly changing environment. What has been holding many non-tech industries back is the lack of talent to support the transition to digital. But there are two major shifts afoot that may impact non-tech companies’ outlook for digital transformation:

Widespread artificial intelligence (AI) options to enhance productivity
More than 100,000 tech workers out of jobs

AI enhancing productivity

Amidst tech layoffs in 2022 and 2023 was the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. In just five days, the AI chatbot had obtained one million users. While automation has also been listed as an explanation for recent layoffs, advancements in AI may help companies solve the talent shortage by amplifying the output of skilled workers.

With employees using AI, even non-tech companies may feel less of an impact of hiring shortages. Coupled with the increased number of tech workers looking for jobs and capable of leveraging AI, this could have a tremendous impact on digitalization across industries.

Tech workers moving to other industries

As tech workers resettle, some are landing in what were traditionally non-tech fields. According to Vox, the biggest and fastest-growing industries for tech professionals are finance, manufacturing, and healthcare. In conversations with Outthinker Network heads of strategy, companies from media, publishing, professional services, banking, and insurance all are seeking, sometimes frantically, for tech talent to support their digital transformation efforts.

In 2022, most laid off tech workers returned to the tech industry. Will we see the same occur in 2023? [chart via Ensemble]

According to LinkedIn, “technology-savvy skills” were among the top five skills employers want to see on resumes in 2023.

“Staying current with the latest technology is expected from any potential employee, notwithstanding the industry they are set to be involved in,” explained Samira Shihab, founder of Tinkerlust and Stellar Women, Indonesia, in the article.

Talent arenas

For years, strategy and management expert Rita Gunther McGrath has predicted that companies would need to think of strategy and competition in terms of competitive arenas, not industries. Leaders would do well to apply this thinking to talent, too.

An industry-lens based on products and supply chain efficiencies is severely limited when you consider the experiences customers want to have and the type of work employees want to do. Arenas are sets of resources a customer needs, with different players involved in providing those resources.

For example, Best Buy realized that customers don’t only want to buy a TV—they want the TV mounted, connected to cable and the internet, and able to access subscription services. Former CEO Hubert Joly invested in finding and training the right talent to offer knowledge on that complete set of resources.

Conclusion

As emerging technologies become widely adopted and industry boundaries continue to blur, it will become hard to distinguish what differentiates a tech company from a non-tech company. Soon “tech talent” might simply become “talent”, and formerly laid-off tech employees may be the reason behind the digital evolution of companies across arenas.

Header photo by Pixabay

Leverage Point	“8Ps” of Strategy	Opportunity for Disruption	Recommended Leverage Points
Position	- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting. - The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.	3	- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market segments that you previously thought unreachable? - What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).
Product	- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers. - The technology you develop for producing those products.	8	- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use? - What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and production? - How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable land? - What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?
Promotion	- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries. - How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.	8	- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it? - How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?
Price	How consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.	7	- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?
Placement	- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.	9	- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire? - How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat? - How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more accessible to customers/agile supply chain? - Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?
Physical Experience	- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer. - How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.	9	- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness scale? - Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs? - What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?
Processes	- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.	8	- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste? - How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.? - What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?
People	- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.		- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision? - How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)? - How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?
--	--	--	--

Leverage
Point

“8Ps” of Strategy

Opportunity
for Disruption

Recommended Leverage Points

Position

- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting.

- The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.

- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market
segments that you previously thought unreachable?

- What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).

Product

- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers.

- The technology you develop for producing those products.

- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use?

- What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and
production?

- How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable
land?

- What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?

Promotion

- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries.
- How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.

- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it?
- How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?

Price

How consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.

- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?

Placement

- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.

- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire?
- How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat?
- How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more
accessible to customers/agile supply chain?
- Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?

Physical
Experience

- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer.
- How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.

- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness
scale?
- Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs?
- What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your
customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?

Processes

- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.

- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste?
- How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.?
- What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?

People

- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.

- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision?
- How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)?
- How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?